Part 2

“Harkye, Tom. I have said my say. You know the position which I hold as the patron of religious and philanthropic societies. You are aware of the repute which I bear. With your proceedings, and those of your associates, rumour is busy. Such rumours reflect upon me. Common decency should suggest to you that I am the last person in the world to whom you should apply for fresh means wherewith to procure fresh indulgence.”

“Indeed, sir—”

“Enough, Tom. I am busy. Good-morning.”

It was useless to argue further. The Hon. Tom Foote, with downcast countenance, withdrew; reflected that he must once more have recourse to his friends, Shadrach, Mesech, and Abednego in Throgmorton Street; and inwardly apostrophised his stern parent as Old Father Adamant.

When Tom left the library Lord Lundy rang the bell. When the menial entered his lordship was still feeling in the left-hand pocket of his vest.

“Oh, James,” he said, “tell my man to look for the snuff-box I usually carry. Must have dropped it somewhere.”

James bowed and departed on his mission.

Meanwhile Tom, descending into Grosvenor Square, hailed a passing hansom; but when the driver pulled up by the kerb he was undecided in what direction to drive.

“Shall I go to the Raleigh and consult Bruiser, or shall I go direct to old Abednego, or shall I see Dot and explain matters?” This to himself. Then, suddenly making up his mind to see Dot, he gave his cabman an address in the vicinity of the Regent’s Park, and abandoned himself to his fate.

To his great delight, and, indeed, surprise, he found Dot in the very best of tempers. Her little villa was surrounded by a wall which protected it from the vulgar stare of the passer-by, and Tom found her in her breakfast-room arranging flowers and humming an air out of _Diana_, a burlesque which she was at that time engaged in illustrating at the Mausoleum Theatre. She was arrayed in a morning-gown of light-blue, trimmed with some fluffy stuff strangely suggestive of powder-puffs. She received her guest with considerable warmth; asked her “poor old boy” why he looked so “glum,” and when in reply he admitted that he had been unable to obtain the trifling sum which she had requested, burst out laughing, and said,—

“Don’t look so solemn, Dolly,”—’twas her pet name for him. “I shall be able to do without it for the present. A wealthy connection of mine has just died leaving me sufficient for all immediate wants. And now what’s the news?”

Tom having mentally blessed the rich and opportune relative, and having regretted aloud that any person should have deprived him of the coveted opportunity of playing the part of relieving officer, declared that there was no news.

He then began to look about the room. This is a habit which most men have in visiting rooms where others, perchance, may be received—others that they know not of. There is a suspicion of the very furniture. A jealousy of articles left behind. Great Heavens! what heart-burnings have been caused by the discovery of a strange cigar-case or a ring with an unfamiliar monogram.

Tom, strolling up to the mantel-piece while chatting to Dot, or listening to her artless prattle, perceived, nestling between the ormolu timepiece and a vase of early primroses, a snuff-box. He took it up and involuntarily ejaculated,—

“Halloa!”

Dot looked up, and observing the object of his curiosity, exclaimed,—

“Oh, put that down, it—it’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” said Tom. “It’s a snuff-box. Come, where did you get it?”

Dot pouted. She must not be cross-examined. It was an insult to her. Did Dolly doubt her?

But Dolly was in perfect temper. He declared himself as devoid of doubt as a minor prophet, and having calmed the rising emotions of the lady, said, with the greatest _sang-froid_,—

“Lend me the snuff-box till to-morrow at this hour, and I’ll bring you the two hundred. Yes, and a fifty into the bargain.”

“Only a loan, mind,” stipulated the girl, who, like most of her charming sex, had a mind irrevocably fixed on the main chance.

“Of course—only a loan,” replied the elated Tom; “d’ye think I’m going to turn snuff-taker?”

Whether Tom’s logic or the hope of Tom’s money mollified Miss Dot, it is certain that when, an hour after, he left Laburnum Villa, Regent’s Park, N.W., he had the snuff-box in his pocket.

It was from Lady Lundy that his lordship had imbibed his religion and his philanthropy. She was, indeed, a marvellous woman, and had been known on at least one occasion to take the chair from which indisposition had driven her husband. If ever a nobleman could have been said to be hen-pecked, that devoted aristocrat was Lord Lundy. And Tom, although more audacious in his expressions of defiance, also stood in considerable awe of his mother. When on the evening of the day during which all the events of this unvarnished tale arrived, Tom sat down to dinner, both his father and his mother were surprised at the flow of his animal spirits, the redundancy of his anecdotes, and the impudent way in which he relegated to some future occasion all discussion concerning Outcast London, or the heathen living in dark places of the earth.

Being a Christian household, certain Christian customs were observed in the Lundy establishment; so when Lady Lundy left the room her husband and her son remained to discuss a glass of claret.

“You seem in excellent spirits to-night, my boy,” said the father. And the remark was not uncalled for; because when last father and son had met, the latter was extremely downcast.

“Pretty well, thank you,” replied the youth.

“And to what may I attribute this change?”

“I’ve taken your advice, sir, and have commenced to do something useful. I have gone into trade.”

“God bless my soul! _Trade_!”

“Yes. I’m dealing in articles—if I may call them so—of _virtue_.”

“You’re joking.”

“Never more serious, I assure you. To prove it I will sell you something.”

“What?”

“A snuff-box.”

The philanthropist laughed.

“And so it is you who have been hiding my favourite box. Hand it over this minute, you rascal.”

But Tom shook his head.

“No; this can’t be _yours_. This is a snuff-box with a history. It belonged, my dear father, to a great philanthropist; and it was discovered in a breakfast-room in the Regent’s Park.”

At this Tom exhibited the pretty receptacle, saying,—

“How much do you say for this highly authenticated heirloom?”

“The two hundred you asked for this morning, Tom,” replied the father, with more coolness than might reasonably been expected under the circumstances.

“Not enough,” said the son.

“Three hundred—five hundred!” gasped the philanthropist.

“Say a thousand,” insinuated Tom.

“I’ll be d—d if I do!” replied the philanthropist, with the utmost decision.

“Then,” said Tom, rising, “I’ll take it to her ladyship, and see what she’ll give me for it—and for its story.”

“Tom, sit down, I command you. Not a word of this. The money is yours.”

How Tom managed with Dot about retaining the snuff-box history does not say. But it has been noticed with considerable alarm that Tom has now a greater influence over Lord Lundy than ever was obtained even by her ladyship.

IV. “_ONE WAS RENT AND LEFT TO DIE_.”

AFTER the traveller passes the City of Oxford the Thames greatly changes its aspect. Locks are deserted by their keepers. One has to open these waterways for oneself, and there is usually a difficulty in finding the bolts rust-eaten and honey-combed into a very corrugated species of small-pox. For traffic has ceased a great way below, and the gentle dwellers by the banks are a dull and slow race of men given greatly to the consumption of beer. You may proceed to great distances without seeing a human being. It is a narrow Thames hereabouts and a shallow. Yet it is infinitely pleasant in the early spring, when the birds sing against each other in what to us appear songs of unaffected gladness, but which are really cries of baffled envy—of angry jealousy. For even the note of the nightingale is now relegated by the advance of knowledge to a place among our shattered illusions.

Innocent lambs, sweetly unconscious of the rapidly growing mint, bleat feebly at the unexpected apparition of a boat containing a human being in flannels, and the great kine slaking their thirst gaze with meek contemptuous eyes at the intruder. How cool the rushes show standing by the water’s edge, unheeding as yet the earlier efforts of a sun rehearsing for his summer effects. And above all, the deep cerulean with its white clouds, motionless as those of the painted canvas in the theatre—seeming more intensely white as the black wings of the rook pass beneath with lazy sweep.

Twenty miles above Oxford—more than twenty or less than twenty, for I do not wish the place identified—is the village of —. It is situated about a mile and a half from the banks of the Thames, and is a place which was at one time of some consideration, but now is half asleep. It has done its business and retired. Some wealthy men live in the place and its vicinity. The labourers look fat on a wage of a shilling or so a day, and once a year there is a fair, which is greatly deplored by the godly as calculated to undermine the morals of the simple villagers, whom to my own knowledge stand in need of no such temptation, being by nature somewhat prone to forget that part of the moral law which inculcates advice regarding the regulation of a man’s desires.

The prettiest girl in — was Jessie Bracebridge. She had long golden hair rigidly suppressed under her garden hat, and soft blue eyes and a figure lithe but rounded. Her dress was plain to a fault. For she was the only daughter of William Bracebridge, cobbler and Methodist local preacher, a pious enthusiast of great original power and extraordinary will; but a pious enthusiast whose notions of Duty if carried out to their fullest by mankind generally, would render the world a very uncomfortable place to live in. In the year 1741 the Rev. John Wesley had visited —, and, as appears from his “Journal,” being greatly scandalised by the fact that the Vicar hunted three days a week in the season, and that every second name inserted in the registry of birth was that of an illegitimate infant, established a conventicle in the village and set apart a local or lay preacher to look after his converts until such time as he could send a regularly ordained minister to supply their spiritual wants. The lay preacher was named Bracebridge, and the Bracebridge whose name appears in this unvarnished tale was grandson of the friend of John Wesley. Bracebridge was indeed in a sort of Apostolical Succession.

In the glorious spring weather of 18–, Jessie Bracebridge had wandered down to the river and stood among the reeds looking across the great expanse of meadow beyond the other shore, and wishing that her mother were alive again, and wondering if people might be really good and relatively happy without being so strict and stern as her father, or so instant as he was in season and out of season. Perhaps, too, she was indulging in day dreams of the great world outside, for she was in her seventeenth year, and had read of the wonders of cities, and, notwithstanding her father’s denunciation of the wickedness in them, longed perhaps to see and judge for herself. Suddenly her thoughts were diverted. A lamb more silly than its companions—if indeed one lamb can be more silly than another—had approached too near the edge of the stream, and the bank giving way under its small weight it fell into the stream and wakened the echoes with piteous bleating. At that catastrophe Jessie shrieked aloud, regarding the quadruped’s as a life only less precious than that of a human being.

A skiff came round the bend of the stream, and its occupant was soon pulling toward the shrieking maiden. In her distress she pointed to the drowning lamb, and he, not without difficulty, rescued the woolly unfortunate, and then returned to receive the thanks which he considered were his due—for although we are all agreed that virtue is its own reward, few of us are satisfied with that intangible recompense. He was a frank-looking, bronzed, and brown-haired English youth, and she blushed as, with the candid impulse of his nature, he expressed his sorrow for her distress and his unfeigned delight that he had been in a position to render a service which had given her pleasure.

It was a short interview but it was a fatal one. She had looked and loved. He had looked and loved. They met again. And again. And for the first time in her life she had a secret from the father whom she feared.

But ah! for her what unthought of bliss in these meetings. How she listened as her lover, her hero, talked of the world of wealth and fashion—of the grand mansions of London, of the historic colleges of Oxford. He sang to her songs of the world, and even taught her, who heretofore regarded as morally wrong anything in the way of a musical exercise not contained in the compilation of John and Charles Wesley, to warble such ditties. Of these it gave him a dreamy pleasure to hear her sing to him a composition—which commenced or ended—for I forget which—with the words—

“We threw two leaflets you and I, To the river as it wandered on, One was rent and left to die, The other floated onward all alone.”

An ominous quatrain.

Tom was the name of this sweet-voiced young lover. And Tom was the son of an eminent judge, who has since exchanged the ermine for a crown of glory. Tom was at that time a student of Magdalen College, Oxford. And Jessie, as you know, was the daughter of a Methodist cobbler. Yet they loved all the spring till he went away to the Continent and forgot all about that pleasant spooning.

* * * * *

On the following spring Judge —, his revered parent, went the Oxford Circuit. One day after the Court had risen, he called at his son’s chambers in Magdalen College. There was an affectionate greeting between father and son, and the latter, whom as we have seen, was a most impulsive and kind-hearted young fellow, saw that his father was not looking well.

“You look ill,” he said, in his sweet musical tones. “The pestilential atmosphere of those infernal courts.”

“No. I have been engaged in trying a very sad case.”

Tom smiled incredulously.

“The idea of a judge of your experience affected by anything that transpires in a Court of Justice.”

“And yet so it is.”

“The story must be an exceptionally terrible one.”

“No. It is only exceptionally sad. I will tell it to you briefly. A young woman was charged with the murder of her infant. The young woman was unmarried. So far the story is unfortunately an ordinary one. She refused to make any defence or divulge anything with regard to the parentage of the child. A plea of not guilty was entered, and I assigned counsel to defend her. But the facts were too strong. The legal guilt of the unfortunate, and, I may say, very beautiful victim was clearly established by the witnesses for the Crown. But one witness appeared for the defence, and he volunteered his evidence. He was a tall, gaunt man, with a highly intelligent face. He was dressed in broadcloth. He entered the box, and said, in slow tones—the tones of a man suffering an unutterable agony—‘My lord, I wish to speak to the character of my daughter.’ He had no sooner spoken the words than the prisoner uttered a shriek, which, to my dying day, I shall remember. She shrieked the word ‘Father,’ and fell to the floor of the dock. There was great confusion in court for some minutes. A medical man was sent for. When he arrived he pronounced the prisoner dead. The prosecuting counsel rose and announced the fact to the court. The father still stood in the witness-box. His face was ghastly pale, his hands clenched before him, his eyes were cast towards the roof of the building and looked bright, as though he could see through that obstacle to something above. Amid a dead silence, in deep and infinitely pathetic tones he repeated the words, ‘The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.’ I’m not ashamed to tell you that tears fell on my note-book from these old eyes of mine.”

“And the man’s name?” asked Tom, casually.

“William Bracebridge, of —.”

For one moment a deadly paleness spread over the face of the son. But in an instant he regained his self-possession, and with his characteristic, frank, engaging manner, said,—

“Dear old dad, no wonder the scene upset you. It is, indeed, a sad story. Try a Laranaga, and let us talk of something else.”

V. _THE GRIGSBY LIVING_.

GRIGSBY is in Kent, and although, in respect of its hops and cherry-orchards, it is called upon to pay extraordinary tithes, its inhabitants seem comfortable and contented. An occasional agitator happening upon Grigsby endeavours to arouse the farmers as to the iniquity of the landowners. But these political missionaries receive but scant welcome, and packing up their carpet-bags depart by early trains.

Much of the neglect bestowed upon the disciples of those who consider that land should be let at prairie rates may be traced to the fact that for ten generations the Bodkins have been established in the vicinity. And the present baronet, Sir Lionel de Stacy Bodkin, is as popular with his tenants and with the country-side generally, as anyone of his predecessors. The Bodkins were good landlords and stuck by the farmers. And the farmers, with a fine bucolic sentiment of reciprocity, stuck by the Bodkins.

One of the Bodkins always went into the Church, and was presented with the Grigsby living. Here he ministered to the living Bodkins and delivered his sage platitudes to the unheeding ears of the Bodkin effigies that lay in the chancel

“—staring right on With calm eternal eyes.”

Twenty-five years ago a curious break occurred in this apostolic succession of Bodkins. Montagu being the baronet’s third son, and being, into the bargain, “the mildest-mannered man” of whom it is possible to form any adequate conception, had been destined for the Grigsby living, and for the emoluments therefrom accruing, including tithes ordinary and extraordinary.

Montagu had passed just a year at Christ Church, Oxford, when his uncle, who then had the living, died suddenly. And although Montagu was not a man of very brilliant parts, he knew that by no process of selection or patronage understood even by the Church, could his ordination be so hurried as to permit of his stepping into the shoes of his deceased uncle, and he further felt that the inhabitants of Grigsby, being presumably possessed of immortal souls—the said souls standing in weekly need of saving—the living must be temporarily held by someone outside the pale of the family.

During the first weeks following the death of the Rev. Reginald de Stacy Bodkin, M.A., the subject was not broached in the family. But when after a reasonable time grief had become ameliorated, and nothing so demonstrative as a paroxysm permissible, the son approached his father and observed, with his peculiar drawl,—

“The situation is decidedly awkward and complicated—don’t you know.”

“Not at all—not at all,” replied the parent, with decision. “I’ll see that it’s all right. Go back to Oxford. By the time you’re ordained, Grigsby living will be ready for you.”

Montagu was still doubtful, and said hesitatingly,—

“Don’t you think that I’d better study for the Bar?”

Notwithstanding the general gloom, the baronet smiled as he answered,—

“My dear boy, when you are ordained I can present you with a living. If you go to the Bar, I think it quite unlikely that you will be able to pick one up. No. Leave everything to me and go back to Oxford.”

So he left everything to his father and went back to Oxford.

* * * * *

Five-and-twenty miles from Grigsby is Limpus-on-the-Wold, which is, I believe, one of the very poorest parishes in all England. It is not only poor, but it is wide-spread. Its inhabitants are dense, and the work of its rector somewhat wearing. At the time of this unvarnished tale the rector of Limpus was Dr. Shotter, one of the most learned and pious clergymen in the Church. But care, ill-health, anxiety, and the death of his wife, had told on him. Moreover, he was an old man. He had completed his seventieth year, and now calmly waited an early call to the land of shadows, whither his wife had preceded him.

Worn to a mere skeleton, with a small hectic spot burning on his cheek and a hacking cough racking his frame, he sat at the open casement inhaling the heavy perfumes of a hot July afternoon. He was tended by his daughter, a staid woman of forty, who placed her hand on his forehead when the fit of coughing came, and handed him his draught, or spoke words of hope and encouragement, when the old man gave it as his opinion that the end was very near.

Then was heard the rattle of a heavy vehicle on the road, and presently a drag and four steaming greys drew up before the door of the rectory. A man of about fifty years of age descended from the box seat, entered the rectory garden, and in a few moments Dr. Shotter’s daughter was reading from a card the name of Sir Lionel de Stacy Bodkin, Bart.

The baronet was admitted, and by his fine, genial, hearty manner soon found his way into the good graces of the rector.

“Badly-drained unhealthy hole this,” he remarked with candour, alluding not to the house in particular but to Limpus generally.

The Doctor of Divinity nodded assent, and had a terrible fit of coughing.

“You must get out of it, my dear sir. The place is killing you. Limpus-on-the-Wold wants a young man with an iron constitution. You are an old man, but with many years of useful work before you.”

Dr. Shotter shook his head and avowed that he had but little interest in the life that now is, and made touching reference to another and a better country, an allusion which caused his daughter to weep.

“Tut, tut,” said the baronet; “the beastly vapours of this place have depressed you. Now, what would you think of Grigsby?”

“A paradise,” sighed the old pastor.

“Then, sir, enter that paradise. It is mine to give. Genius like yours, sir, should be taken care of in its old age. My dear madam,” he continued, turning to the daughter, “add your solicitations to mine. There is no hard work, there is the most charming air in Kent, and there is a stipend which will permit the purchase of those luxuries to which an invalid is entitled.”

“It is like a dream, sir; it seems too good to believe,” said the daughter. Nevertheless, she argued with her father, and urged him till he was beaten down to a solitary argument, which was that he was too weak to be moved with safety. The kindly-hearted baronet, however, speedily dispelled that difficulty. When the time came he would arrange that the man of God should be removed by easy stages and in the most comfortable of vehicles.

And that is the manner in which the Rev. Dionysius Shotter, D.D., was appointed to the Grigsby living five-and-twenty years ago.

* * * * *

When Sir Lionel had praised the air of Grigsby he had not done it more than justice. Compared with Limpus it was indeed a paradise, and, to the great delight of his daughter Rachel, Dr. Shotter lost his cough before he had been two months in the new place. He began absolutely to put on flesh, found himself capable of walking a mile without inconvenience, and displayed a vigour in his pulpit discourses which would have roused feelings of envy, malice, hatred, and all un-charitableness in the breast of his curate—had that divine been capable of such worldly emotions.